st: reading data with missing obs

I am trying to read in data from multiple xml files (although this issue
is not specific to this format, I believe) in which some of the sheets
within some of the files have variable names in the first row and
nothing else. That is, all variables are missing in some of the sheets
within some of the files.

In reading in these files, Stata only appears to read in the first
variable... not continuing to subsequent columns. If I had but a few
files I would brute force this by filling the empty cells with some
unique character, read them in and then drop the obs accordingly.
However, I have many of these sheets to be read in, so automating it
would be quite valuable.